


Oh, but the Farrow Knows

by Naiesu



Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Jack being Jack, M/M, he was a shepherd and no one can tell me otherwise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naiesu/pseuds/Naiesu
Summary: But you are afraid of something. It’s the one thing I always know—people’s greatest fears. Yours is that no one will ever believe in you. Most of all you’re afraid you’ll never knowwhy.Whyyou?Why were you chosento be like this.The words ring true in Jack’s heart, and all he wants to know iswhy, why, why.





	Oh, but the Farrow Knows

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter!

_ But you are afraid of something. It’s the one thing I always know—people’s greatest fears. Yours is that no one will ever believe in you. Most of all you’re afraid you’ll never know   _ why.  _ Why   _ you?  _ Why were you chosen _

 

_ to be like this. _

 

 

The words stick with Jack. They stick with him for a long time.

Why? He wonders about that. A few sentences that grabbed his attention and never let go, never let him forget. He’s always known, he thinks, deep down. But it is so much easier to ignore a problem than to face it.

Fear builds and it breaks. Drives people forward and holds them back. Brings them together and tears them apart.

Survival and surrender.

The words ring true in Jack’s heart, and all he wants to know is  _ why, why, why. _ _ _

 

_ “Jack,” _ North says. His tone is disapproving, disappointed. Jack shakes his head, looking down at his feet and tapping his staff against his instep, “why are you not telling me this earlier?”

Jack sighs, agitated. He feels like a child, scolded by a parent and wanting so badly to be anywhere besides where he is. Even so, he feels a burst of displeasure, chagrin, bubbling in his chest at letting North down.

He shifts his weight, shaking his head again, and looks up at North. “I didn’t tell you because you all blow everything out of proportion _ ,”  _ he says. He gestures with his stave. “Nothing  _ bad _ happened. I’m fine.”

“It is not  _ mattering  _ that you are fine,” North says, but it’s softer when he says it. His expressions smooths out in response to Jack’s irritation. “We want you to be  _ safe.” _

“I  _ am  _ safe.” Jack takes a steps back, turning himself away.  _ I’m leaving,  _ he wants to say.  _ This is ridiculous. _

“Look,” he says, holding his hands out when he sees North open his mouth to talk again. “I’ll be careful, OK?” Jack smiles, and hopes it looks genuine enough to placate.

He steps back again, but as he starts to swing around fully North lays a heavy hand on his shoulder, squeezing just enough to hold him in place. Jack rolls his eyes, turning around again.

North is worried. His expression is twisted up, and he takes his time sorting the words out. “If you see  _ anything,”  _ he says, serious. He searches Jack’s eyes,  _ “come back.” _

Jack nods, pulling away, but he can’t help the nervous laugh that bubbles up in his throat. “It was just a Nightmare,” he says. Somehow the words don’t feel as carefree as he wants them to. “I’m sure there’s still a couple running around.”

North starts to say something again, but Jack hops onto the wind, letting it carry him down through the heart of the workshop before he gets sucked into another lecture.

_ I can take care of myself,  _ he thinks, indignant.

The disquiet lingers, and Jack shoves it far, far down inside of him.

 

He ignores it for a long time.

A few weeks to be exact. He doesn’t go back to visit North after their talk—it feels like a challenge. If he runs back to North for every little concern then how can he convince them he doesn’t need a babysitter? How could he convince  _ himself?  _ He’s never needed them before, and just because he’s become a Guardian doesn’t mean that’s changed.

He does admit to himself, some time later, that North was right in being worried. Jack is strong, self-reliant, but he also has no protection against the Nightmares. Pitch had rendered his ice useless. He has nothing else.

_ I could beat them to death,  _ he thinks, dry. He’s reluctant to use his stave as a club.

_ I’ll just run.  _ It would be easy. He’s fast.

Jack pauses in the middle of slicking up a sidewalk with ice, staring at the tip of his stave. He could outrun anything, so what’s keeping him from doing a bit of snooping?

_ Reconnaissance,  _ he tells himself once he’s up in the air. The wind teases at his hair and clothes, and then wings him away.

It’s doesn’t take long for him to land in Hawthorne, and he stops at his pond, hovering over the chilled water. It’s cold out, but not enough to freeze, and Jack steps down carefully. Frost spills out from his skin, hardening into something more stable.

He stands in the middle of the pond, watching the ice spread and spread until it finally hits the shores.

Jack looks around once at the copse of pines, and then walks into the woods. He pushes the needles out of his way as he walks further in, and the trees get so close together that the sun gradually disappears from view.

He pushes the last bush off to the side, but he pauses when he steps out into a clearing. The thickets surround him, shrouding him. There’s nothing but a circle of hardened dirt. No growth.

Jack takes another cautious step toward the center, but when nothing pops up, jumps at him, he strides forward. He has his stave in both hands—a lifeline.

There’s a small indent in the dirt in the center of the clearing, surrounded by splintered wood.

He remembers then, the screaming, the frenzied running, the shadows. Pitch being dragged down into the earth. The soil swallowing him.

Jack shivers. He doesn’t want to be here. Something about the air feels wrong, unearthly, and it grasps at him with desperate fingers. Begging him to come closer.

He leaves. It’s not what he was looking for at all, and it leaves him with more questions than answers. If Pitch is closed up underground, then where are the Nightmares coming from?

 

Jack knows he should drop it, he  _ does. _

But something about the entire situation bothers him. He’s too curious to let it go unnoticed, to continue on his daily routine. He wants to find out why, he wants to  _ know. _

He never passes any of the guardians. Jack is thankful for that. If any of them found out what he was doing, who he was seeking out, he would never hear the end of it.  _ You’re being reckless. How could you ever think that was a good idea? What if you got hurt? _

If he gets hurt he gets hurt. There’s nothing anyone can do about that.

_ What’s important is whether I die or not,  _ Jack thinks, skimming a terrace and leaving icicles behind him.  _ And I’m not dead yet, am I? _

He skips over a canal, leaving small leaves of frost behind. They flow down, knocking into the brick and breaking apart. Jack doesn’t spend much more time there. The sun is rising, and he doesn’t care to stick around. Venice isn’t working with him.

The landscape is sparse once he leaves the inner city, and he slows down to look.

It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before—hasn’t seen a million times—but he lands in the grass of a pasture.

There are sheep here, and Jack watches them graze. They look at him, cautious but unperturbed, and Jack appreciates their dismissal. It grounds him.

He digs his toes into the dirt, lets the grass brush up against his ankles. It feels familiar in a distant way. A muscle memory.

Jack fingers his stave. He looks at the sheep a moment longer, and then steps forward. It wouldn’t hurt to pretend. Just a minute.

He holds his stave out, and the sheep look at him as he closes in. Some start walking away, knowing, and he reels in the stragglers.

Jack laughs, lighthearted. It’s a nice change of pace. To go back to before, far before. When he didn’t have to wander aimlessly. When he wasn’t tethered down by the sudden weight of obligation.

The sheep flock together as they close in on their barn, but Jack stops following when he sees a few that he missed. He lets the wind lift him to the far end of the pasture, and drops down lightly. He slows. There’s a large fissure in the ground, a chasm, surrounded by an old fence. Jack peers over it, lets his hand rest on the rotted wood, and angles inward.

He can’t see anything. The darkness is inky, and the longer he stares the more it seems to reel him in. The abyss breathes, and Jack feels malice.

He wants to leave, but something tethers him. Curiosity, maybe. He knocks in a loose piece of wood and listens.

There’s not bottom, and if there is it’s far below him.

_ Not very safe,  _ he thinks, a bit amused, and taps his stave against the fence.

He takes a step back, and the ground gives way beneath him.

 

Jack groans when he wakes. It’s hot, incredibly hot, and he breathes deeply. Sweat beads at his brow, turning his skin clammy.

He sits up, rubbing at the sore skin at the crown of his head. His fingers are bloody when he pulls them back, and he sighs, getting to his feet. It’s nothing serious. He’s had worse.

_ Have I?  _ he wonders, looking up above him. Light filters through the dust, weak, and the longer Jack looks the further away the opening seems. When he calls the wind it licks at his skin, playful but weak.

“Great,” he grumbles, picking up his stave. He spins back and forth, looking for a way out.

There are numerous tunnels around him, all too dark to see in. The wind pulls at him, and he turns again, looking down the tunnel it comes from. 

It looks just like the rest of them. Jack wants nothing more than to ignore it, walk a different way,  _ fly,  _ but he doesn’t have a choice.

He follows it. It feels like he walks forever, and the slope of the ground throws him off as it angles him down. He drags his hand along the wall to keep his balance, but every minute becomes harder than the last. The heat wears at him. His clothing is soaked in sweat, and his breathing is labored.

_ I’m melting,  _ he thinks, and it feels so stupid. How could a human melt?

_ More of a human shaped block of ice,  _ he thinks, scoffing.

It feels like miles by the time he reaches the mouth of the tunnel. The light is strained, but Jack has been in the dark long enough that it’s blinding.

He covers his eyes, stepping out into hot muck.

Cages surround him, broken statues and masonry, debris.

Jack is in Pitch’s lair, and it is empty.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions, comments, concerns? My [tumblr](https://caelus-writes.tumblr.com/)


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